Steam Expanding to Other Things, Domination to Follow

Steam must play third base, because their corner of the industry is just about the hottest lately. Today, Valve has announced that the upcoming World power will expand beyond games, releasing "Software" titles on the platform as well. Oh snap.

The mysterious "Software" will begin to trickle onto Steam beginning September 5 and will include noted Steamworks features such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to the Steam cloud.

The base set of Software will range from creativity to productivity applications, with future titles to release via Greenlight, Steam's community powered spam filter, assuring only quality makes it to the store, and subsequently to your library during one of the service's generous sales. 

This is a bold move, but the right one for the bull market minded Valve. I can see drawing and editing programs being a huge success, especially if they are priced right. The market for word processing and data entry is probably a bit (a huge bit) less, but who knows, maybe pricing and features will bring some new customers to the service. With the high-profile troubles of torrent sites in both the near and distant past and future, an aggresively priced, quality crafted application could be the most painless get for bro who was just invited to Demonoid two days before ship sank. Talk about timing, right?

No word on whether or not the Software will support chat and achievements, but I'm you'll know when you get that messge "Your friend is playing Photoshop".

OK Let's GO: Pre-Purchase the Latest Counter-Strike on Steam

I feel like I've already used that "OK Let's GO" bit in a prior article but I don't care - it's a good line. 

Valve has announced today that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is available for pre-purchase on Steam; and doing just that will net you some benefits. For those of you with a weak grip on your grip, CS:GO can be had for 10% less than its normal price: $13.49 as opposed to $14.99. That's $1.50 that you could use on a bag of chips or something. Go on, indulge yourself. 

The additional benefit is early access to the beta on August 14, a full week before the title's proper release, and plenty of time to get your DEagle shined, primed, and aligned for the couple hundred thousand you should expect to face off against in the following months.

As alluded, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive releases on August 21. Good times to follow. 

Just Another Gear in Valve's World Domination Machine

The other day I watched the latest of Valve's shorts, called 'Meet the Pyro'. You see, Team Fortress 2, like many of Valve's other games, has a huge following of die-hard fans who do everything from watching at its very basic, to modding the living shit out of anything and everything related to the game. So they release these short films that explain the cast of very literal characters that star in this blockbuster. Each and every of these shorts are incredibly well done in every way, so much that at times I'm forced to step back, scratch my head, and say "Hot damn, how the fuck do they work this magic?" Well, here are answers. 

Valve has a little something called the Source Filmmaker, which takes footage from any Source game (Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Half Life 2, etc) and allows you to edit it in just about any cinematic way you can dream up. It's quite incredible what the tool allows you to do in real time; change animations, change lighting, you name it and I'm pretty sure it can be done. The Source Filmmaker is currently in beta, but you can get in on the fun - as well as learn more about what you can do with the tool - by signing up at the Source Filmmaker homepage.

Valve just knocks everything out of the park. Everything they do turns to gold. Except for the that collaboration with Adult Swim. Seriously guys? Two of the most ass-kicking entities in media and all you could come up with was a fucking Robot Chicken hat? Xaro Xhoan Weaksauce. 

Cave Johnson on Bot Trust: Good Job, Robots

When Valve Software announced J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, the CEO and voice of Aperture Science in Portal 2, I thought "Oh, cool." That's it, just cool. But the more I hear Cave speak, the more I'm absolutely enamored by the voice and the choice. Simmons' unique sound and excellent delivery not only lends some B-star credibility to Portal 2, but he also plays the the role perfectly.

In this, the second of Aperture Science's hilarious "investment opportunity" video series, Cave Johnson details the ways robots are more trusting than humans. Well, he's definitely convinced me. Now, not only am I going to layer my house in lovely panels, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to ditch all my friends and replace them with robots. Thank you Aperture Science!

E3: Portal 2

The original Portal was a game that snuck up on a lot of people last year. When I first saw the trailer, I knew it had some serious potential. If fact, I purchased The Orange Box strictly for Portal, and hardly played anything but that (HL2 and TF2 purists can bite me). As brilliant as it was, the game wasn't without it's faults. Mainly, it was too damn short!

Portal 2, hopefully, looks to rectify the length of it's predecessor while keeping the addictive gameplay, stiff difficulty, and quirky humor. GLaDOS wants to put our differences behind her. For science. You monsters.

Shit just got real. I'll consider this a purchase on your part, because if you don't buy it, you're crazy man! The question will be, can Valve give us $60 worth of gameplay, or will they charge us less for another game we can beat in a few hours?